Automated collection of process data from manufacturing equipment on a manufacturing line is a standard practice in complex process flows, such as those found in the semiconductor industry. For example, semiconductor manufacturing equipment may have hundreds of pickups from which data may be sensed at 100 Hz, or more. Generally, it is desirable to integrate such process data, or “engineering data” from each manufacturing tool into a factory-wide manufacturing execution system (MES) access to the data. Because the equipment is typically operated continuously on successive workpieces, perhaps processing each workpiece for only a few seconds, it is nontrivial to map volumes of data output by a piece of manufacturing equipment into a form required by the MES application.
While a number of MES applications (e.g. Promis®, Applied Fab300, Applied WorkStream, Wonderware, etc.) provide support for storing engineering data, because the specific behavior of each kind of manufacturing tool varies, the task to integrate process data generated by a manufacturing tool with such a MES requires custom coding of a software interface. For example, one interface type would be coded and implemented to collect etch-specific data, such as an endpoint time, output by a plasma etcher. Another interface type would be coded and implemented to collect inspection-specific data, such as defect adder count, output be a defect inspection station. Further customization of each of these interface types may also be required between an etcher of a first vendor (e.g. Applied Materials, Inc.) and a second vendor (e.g. Lam Research®) because of a lack of standardization across vendors.
Thus, at considerable expense, a team including a computer integration engineer familiar with the MES, an equipment engineer familiar with a specific types of equipment, and a process engineer familiar with the process parameters of a manufacturing operation would develop the specific software for each manufacturing tool interface within a particular manufacturing site